"Dirt to Dirt"
Boo!
For you, dear reader, a spooky story for Halloween. I highly recommend you click the link above to listen to the podcast version, which once again has the ever-talented Craig Sechler reading the story.
Dirt to Dirt
The robbery had been a cock-up from minute one, and the only thing that shocked me was that we wasn't all dead, instead of just Rodman. As it was, Slim was gushing blood like a garden hose, it looked like Merle might lose his eye from the shrapnel, and my heart was pounding so hard my chest hurt. Times like these, it was all I could do not to remind himself that this was how my old man had gone out, ticker exploding on a job.
I could barely see shit in the dark as I steered the Buick across the washboard dirt road, rattling our teeth in our jaws and our brains in our skulls. Slim screamed from the backseat with every bump and jostle. Merle had his palm pressed to his wounded left eye, but was his usual dead quiet. I could see the blood dripping down his cheek, but Merle wasn't making a peep, whine or moan about it. That was probably best. When Merle got chatty, things had a tendency to go real bad, real quick.
I'd met Merle in lockdown, and he hadn't said more'n two words at a time for a month. But when a new fish had sat in his seat at the lunch table, Merle had waited 'til they were on laundry duty together, then launched into a half-hour lecture on manners and civility. The Kid never heard most of it, on account of he was screaming the whole time. There wasn't a mark on him, so the screws couldn't prove anything, but he was hurt so bad inside he died three days later.
But Merle was quiet now. I wondered if he didn't give a shit, or if he was just waiting to launch into one of his lectures. I wasn't sure who was gonna get it... it was Rodman's fault the thing went ass-up so quick, but he'd gotten his just what-fors, in the form of a bullet to the brains. And Slim, well, Slim hadn't helped matters, getting everything wrong about the job from the jump. But he was on his way out too, and besides, getting mad at Slim for being stupid was like getting mad at a bird for having wings.
Really, all I was hoping was I wasn't the one had to learn from Merle's good advice. Thinking that, my heart pounded harder, really squeezing my chest. I wondered if this is what the old man had felt like just before he keeled over. Legend has it, my pop tried to shoot a deputy as he died, but being a left-hander, and the heart attack having paralyzed that arm, he couldn't even lift it before he pulled the trigger, and ended up blasting his own foot off. You could say that was ironic, since diabetes had taken the other one first.
My father was not what you'd call a successful man.
The car hit another pothole, and Slim screamed "Christ's crooked cock! Jesus! Aaaahhh!"
"Shut up," Merle growled.
Ah shit, I thought, he is gettin' chatty.
Slim took the hint and shut up, though he kept whimpering and gritting his teeth, but I figure he probably couldn't help that. His name is kind of what you might call a misnomer, bein' that Slim weighed close to three hundred pounds, but even with all that meat to cushion it, the shotgun had blasted through his massive gut, and punctured somethin' valuable inside. I figured it wasn't too long before somethin' in there just stopped working. If he didn't bleed out first.
I couldn't see too well, because crickets were slapping against the windshield, turnin' into bug paste. I tried the wipers, but it was outta fluid, and the wipers just smeared the guts across the glass. The little light by the gas gauge lit up. I didn't wanna say the obvious, but I had to. "We're about outta gas," I said quietly. "This place close?"
Merle craned his head to look at me with his good eye. Christ, I thought, even his good eye looks like Satan's asshole, just dark and black and evil.
Finally, Merle turned back to watch out the windshield.
"Mile or two," he said.
Slim grunted from the back seat... I couldn't tell if it was from pain, or from hearin' he'd have to endure another couple miles of jostling. Bet right about then he was wishin' he'd let one of us have our cell phones. Slim wouldn't let any of us carry 'em on the job, on account of him being paranoid they could track us with 'em. I argued we could buy a burner, just to have one, but Slim had hooted and hollered about how that was no good, they can track the burners and blah-fuckin'-blah. I wasn't exactly reconciled on how they was gonna track a random cell phone they didn't even know we had, but just like the job itself, it sounded legit enough to be a good idea.
The job had been Slim's brainchild, and that should'a been a hint for us right off. Slim never had an idea he couldn't find a way to thoroughly fuck up, from spending a thousand bucks printing fake hundred dollar bills with Ben Franklin's face upside-down, to the bathtub meth lab that burned the tattoos right off his arm when it exploded. Guess it says more about us than about Slim that we was even willin' to listen.
Slim's notion was to rob the "We Buy Gold" store in the strip mall. He'd been working security for the people owned the strip, and he said on a given day, he'd see folks walk in with all manner of gold chains, rings, what-have-you, and walk out with cash... hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars. He figured it as a two-hander, one guy grabs the cash, the other three grab as much gold as they could carry, then pawn it to the "Sell Your Gold Right Here!" shop across town. Hit the place on the right day, you'd get a pretty sweet haul. He hadn't been working there too long, but it seemed like the closer it got to the first of the month, the more customers there were, pawning their shit to make rent.
Slim made two poor assumptions: first, he figured if we hit the place at a time he was supposed to be working, the place wouldn't have a security guard. Second was that the owner of the gold shop, when presented with four guns in their face, would naturally fear enough for their lives that they would be docile and manageable.
First assumption made sense. Slim worked the afternoon to evening shift, so instead of coming to work, we'd wait 'til about twenty minutes after the end of the first guard's shift. Since the owner would've sooner ripped his dick off with a pair of rusty pliers than pay overtime, the first guard would've said hell with it, and gone home, leaving the place open wide as a whore on payday.
As for guns making the owner docile, well, maybe it'd work like that in the blue states, where people would chuckle and say "price'a doin' business!" and go on suckin' Obama's cock or whatever, but in Arizona, they take being robbed as a personal fuckin' affront, akin to callin' their mama a whore.
When we brought this up to Slim, he said, "That's the best part! Guy who owns the place... is a girl! She'll shit herself silly the first sign of us pullin' out our hoglegs. And our guns!" he giggled, the fat fuck, and us, well, that all sounded just about right to us.
So, short story fuckin' long, we pulled up to the strip mall, and when we didn't see a security guard, we figured ol' Slim had maybe gotten something right. We loaded outta the car, like the bunch'a clowns we were, pulled the ski masks over our faces, and managed to get to the front door of "We Buy Gold!" without tripping over our dicks.
That was the last time anything went right for us.
First off, the door was locked, with a little card taped above a doorbell-lookin' button, saying, "PRESS FOR SERVICE." Merle gave Slim a hard look.
"You forget to tell us somethin'?" Merle said.
"How was I supposed to know?"
"You were casing the goddamn joint, and you didn't think this might slow us up?!"
"I didn't see it!" I looked at him, and I could see the sheepish look even through his ski mask. "I didn't wanna get close enough they could recognize me."
By now, of course, the owner had seen us, and the second I saw her, I knew we'd made a mistake. Woman or no, this chick apparently hadn't gotten the goddamn memo about how she was supposed to get all a-fluttery with the vapors when four big strong he-men came knockin' with pistols. No sir, she didn't even hesitate, pullin' her sawed-off from under the counter, rackin' it, and heading to the door to try and earn her a justifiable homicide.
This would be the point when smart-minded folk would turn tail and run, which was exactly what I planned on doing, except a couple things happened at once. First, Rodman let out a holler, a big whooping war cry, and fired at the Owner through the door. I should mention Rodman was a crack sniper in the Marines, every he time he pulled a trigger, they gave him a medal. He practically lived at the gun range, and if he ever entered a shooting contest, most men who knew him didn't even bother showing up. If he got you in his sights, you may as well start buttering your lips to kiss God's asshole.
'cept, of course, the glass on the door was bullet proof.
The bullet pinged off, hit Rodman square in the face and cracked through his skull, while a shard of glass zinged into Merle's left eye. Rodman crumpled on the ground, dead as a duchess, and Merle growled "Goddamn, that was my good eye," but that was all he said on the matter.
Second thing happened was, the big fat security guard they called to replace Slim rolled around the corner, still buckling on his gun belt. Slim squealed like a little girl and took a shot at him. He missed by a country mile, but the security guard must've figured, hell with this, the job wasn't worth it, dropped his gunbelt right there and went running. Slim whooped out "Yeah! Get some!" and fired after the running guard, missing again, hitting a parked car and setting off the alarm as it shattered the window.
Slim must've been feeling pretty chuffed when he turned back around, big smile on his face. Guess he'd forgotten all about the Owner, because he lost that smile pretty quick when the door swung open, and he took both barrels of her sawed-off in the gut.
"Get some'a that, fat boy," she said, racking the shotgun.
Me, I nearly shit myself, so I wasn't any kinda help. But Merle just put his hand over his bad eye, put his pistol up to her head, and sent her on to salvation. No hesitation. Have to admit, it bummed me out. I know it ain't progressive, in this day and age where we're all equal 'n' shit and can all die like men, but somethin' about killin' women makes my asshole pucker. I stared at the blown-out mess where her face used to be and thought to myself, Josie, you are a fool and a killer of women, and when they catch you, they are going to burn the balls right off you, and you deserve nothing less.
And of course, alarms had started whoopin' all over the place. So there it was, front door wide open, the store all ours to rape and plunder, and we had to grab Slim between us, drag him to the car, and high-tail it out. I managed to grab a gold Rolex that was in the window display, but by the time I was able to start the car, I realized that if it was worth anything, it wouldn't've been in the window. Probably wasn't even really a Rolex, just some knockoff.
I hadn't even pulled my goddamn gun.
I'd resolved to keep my head above water when I got outta prison, but that was before Crystal took sick. Crystal was my baby daughter, born while I was in the joint. Wish I could say she was the product of love, but her mom and I didn't get on so hot. Fact is, I was drunk when we met, and if I hadn't been in such a rush to jam my fuckstick in her pie-hole, I might'a noticed she was a cast-iron cunt.
But there was one thing we agreed on, that we loved this little girl we'd made with our dumb lust, and we both vowed to do right by her. For her mom, that meant workin' as a notary at an accounting firm during the day and bartendin' part-time at night. For me that meant... well, I wasn't sure what it meant, since I hadn't figured out what to do to get honest money.
The guys made fun of me when Crystal was born, 'bout how my spunk couldn't produce a boy-child and all that. But fuck them. From the minute she was born, she was the light of my life. I'd look at photos of her lying in my bunk in the joint and feel like a real man, not the fuck-up and loser I'd become.
'sides, if I'd'a had a boy, he'd've just ended up like me.
There was one thing that I believed, that if I could love this little girl, and give her a better life, then I could go to Hell happy. But when the doc said things like "cranio-"something, "brain pressure," and "skull surgery," did I go out and get a real job to pay for the surgery? Did I bust my ass to do the right thing? Did I man up, go to the first McDonald's I saw, beg to flip burgers for the minimum buck?
Shit.
We drove though the pitch black, and the road had only gotten worse. Hell, I don't even think you can call it a road, what that was. Only thing I could do was give it just enough gas to move slow, try not to bump Slim around too much. Least the crickets had stopped slamming into the windshield. It was like comin' out of a weird rainstorm, one second they were there, the next, nothin'.
As we creeped over the rise, I slammed on the brakes. The car buckled forward, the brakes locking but not quite catching. We finally slid to a halt, dust kicking up around the car, and drifting in a lazy cloud around the car.
In front of us was a town, looked like it was straight from the fucking Old West. There were bars, houses, a sheriff's station. Even a church.
"Awwww, the shit is this?" I yelled. Here this fool had told me were going somewhere nobody knew about, he'd led us right to a fucking town, probably with a sheriff who'd toss us in the hole just for looking funny, let alone being covered in other people's blood.
"Ghost town," said Merle.
I looked again. The buildings were old and rotting. There was no light coming from anywhere in town, none of the little glows we get used to in a city, making the stars and the moon seem especially bright. And even though it hadn't occurred to me right off, it clicked what made it seem so weird... no people.
"It got a name?"
"Durnham's Mill," Merle said.
Something about that seemed familiar, like I'd maybe learned about it in school. Something about how one day it was a thriving mining town, next day, poof, everyone was gone. Was supposed to demonstrate to us the ever-changing nature of early America, or some shit, but at the time all I could think was everybody probably killed and ate each other and nobody wanted to admit it. Or slaughtered by Injuns. Native Americans, I mean. More likely that, now I thought about it.
Leave it to Merle to bring us to a place everybody dies badly. Knowin' our luck, we'd get scalped by the ghost of Geronimo or some happy horseshit.
"Ain't there gonna be squatters here?" I asked.
"Why the hell would somebody hump a hundred miles to squat somewhere with no food, water or runnin' toilets? 'sides, if anybody is here..." he lifted his other hand, to show the gun I didn't realize he'd been holding the whole time. The same one he'd used to blow away the owner. Also realized he'd said more in one go than he'd said all day, so I shut up and didn't push my luck.
As I eased the car forward, the gas light started blinking and pinging, and the engine started sputtering. I pulled the car into a slot between the church and a boarded-up grocery, and killed the engine.
"That's it," I said, "If we're gonna get outta here, we're walkin'."
"I got somebody pickin' us up on Friday," Merle said calmly.
"Friday? What about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow he's gotta go to work and meet with his goddamn parole officer, that's what about it."
"You couldn't ask nobody don't got those kinda time constraints?" I asked, forgettin' this was Merle I was gettin' high-hatted with.
"You got so many friends, you go ahead and give 'em a call."
This was him making a fucking joke about the cell phones.
"Shit," I said, getting out of the car and slamming the door. I regretted it at first, thinkin' it might bring anybody who was here down on us, but then I thought, maybe better to see what we're up against.
But nobody showed up. It was quiet, the kinda quiet you get when you're really alone. I stepped into the road, looked down to the end of the town. It really did feel like fuckin' High Noon. I kept expecting Clint Eastwood to come around the corner, wearin' his pancho and smoking them little brown cigars.
Merle stepped out of the car and cracked his back. He'd torn off a piece of his shirt and tied it around his eye, and put sunglasses on to keep it in place. The torn piece of shirt had already soaked through with blood.
Slim moaned from the back seat. I opened the passenger door, ducked my head to look in at him. He wasn't lookin' so good. His face was pale, and he had blood on his lips. Looked like a goddamn vampire.
"I don't think we should move him," I said.
"Hell," Merle said, spit in the dirt, grabbed Slim's boot and yanked him outta the car. Slim shrieked in agony, but Merle ignored him, dragging him across the dirt and gravel, up the stairs to the church door, Slim's head whacking every step. He kicked open the door with a wooden crunch, a thick cloud of dust went flying, and pulled Merle inside.
I followed, through the cloud of dust that just seemed to hover there. As I stepped into the church, I thought I noticed something outta the corner of my eye. I jumped and turned...
... but there was nothing there. Nothing I could see, anyway. My brain starting going a mile a minute about Johnny Law sneaking up, surrounding the place with men with shotguns and "LAW ENFORCEMENT" windbreakers, and my heart started squeezing my chest again. I calmed myself down by saying if they were gonna make that play, they would've done it already, soon as we got outta the car, and long before we was able to hole up inside a church.
Merle dragged Slim up the aisle, shoved him onto the first pew, not five feet from the altar. He got his face close to Slim's, and hissed something at him I couldn't hear. One of his premium lectures, I'm sure. When I got closer, all I could hear was, "... think you can just go on through life, leapin' before lookin', you got another goddamn thing comin'."
Slim's eyes were rolling back to the whites. He didn't seem to be paying much attention.
"You hear me, fats?" Merle said, "You owe me my pound of flesh, and don't be tellin' me you don't got enough on you."
"Might as well let up, Merle," I said, "Christ, he's gonna be dead soon anyway."
"Shit on that," Merle said, "His ass is mine."
He shoved his fingers in Slim's gut wound, digging deep, widening it enough to shove his whole hand in. Slim screamed. Blood spurted onto the pew, dripping onto the floor.
I reached for Merle to pull him back, then thought better of it.
Slim kicked and flopped like a fish, but Merle held on, working his hand inside Slim's gut.
Suddenly, Slim stopped screaming, his head bucking in a seizure. He let out a huge "BRRAAAAAAP" as he shit himself, and far as I could tell, he crapped his soul out with it. His head lolled back, and the body stopped flopping.
Merle pulled his hand out of Slim's gut, painted with blood. He flicked his wrist. Blood flecked on the altar.
"Ashes to ashes, dirt to dirt," Merle said, wiping his hand on Slim's jeans. He spit on the floor, then headed back down the aisle.
I stared at Slim's body awhile. It was weird to be lookin' at him, layin' here on a pew, when I remember him guzzling a can of Natty Ice and stuffin' his face with chips and guac the night before. He was a fuck-up, sure, but he wasn't a bad guy.
The blood dripped onto the floorboards, and I heard the little plip-plip-plip as it it leaked through to the dirt under the church. I wondered how long it took a dead body to stop gushing blood. That made me wonder if bleeding in a church took away whatever made it sanctified. I looked around for anything I could use to cover the body, and didn't see anything.
My eyes lit on the altar, and I stopped. The altar was solid grey wood, old and cracked. Maybe it was a trick of the shadows, but there looked to be faded dark stains on it. But it was hard to tell for sure. I could barely see a hand in front'a my face, what with there being barely any light, how the hell'm I gonna see what color an altar is?
I gave Slim a last look. He looked in death pretty much like he did in life, weak and foolish. "Sorry man," was all I could croak out under my breath, and walked up the aisle.
Merle stood outside, leaning against the porch rail and smoking. Dust blew in lazy puffs down the main thoroughfare. Wind was picking up, and clouds were starting to cover the bright sky. I figured we were in for a storm. Hopefully not a monsoon. A flash flood could whip right through here, and drown us in our sleep. Maybe that's what did in those early pioneers.
"Was that really necessary?" I finally asked Merle. I figured he might go apeshit, decide to do me too, but way I felt right then, he was welcome to it.
He spit a tobacco shred off his tongue, took a drag.
"Yup."
Guess he was done waxing philosophical.
"So?" I said. "What're we supposed to do 'til Friday?"
He held out his pack of smokes to me. I sighed, took one, let him light it. I inhaled the smoke, stared into the dark, and tried not to think of Crystal. Poor little Crystal, with the skull too tight for her brain, poor little girl whose own daddy couldn't do right by her. I swore then, that was it. No more. If I got outta this, if somehow I got home and the cops weren't waitin' for me at my front door, if somehow I didn't get tied to a murder, I was goin' right to the Arby's by my house, puttin' in my application. If that didn't work, I'd dig ditches in the hottest asshole in Arizona. I didn't care if I had to lick toilets clean, or suck off convicts for nickels, I'd do it, and gladly. Crystal was gonna get that surgery, and she was gonna have a father.
If I lived through this.
The sound woke me up, and I nearly jumped to my feet. I have this thing where I dream noises way louder than they are. I'll hear a twig snap outside and in my dreams, it'll sound like a gunshot. Once I woke up thinking I heard screams, turns out it was just me snorin' a little.
In my dream, it had sounded like a pitchfork scraping rusty metal. And something else, like a grapefruit thrown against a window. Least it sounded that way. I jumped up, and forced myself not to breathe, all I heard was dirt lightly scraping against the windows in the wind.
It was black as pitch, what with no electricity or candles, and I was a little confused as to where I was. My chest was tight again, and I squeezed my tit, hoping it would help. After a minute of freakin' out, it all came back to me. We were sleeping in the Sheriff's station, because it turned out to have a pair of holdin' cells with metal bunks. One of 'em had a mattress that'd rotted and been shredded by critters. I let Merle have that one. Now my back was throbbing sore from laying on the hard metal, and I think at that moment I would've traded it for a case of bedbugs.
I looked around, saw a window with moonlight peeking in, and walked on over to it. Outside I could hear what sounded like a hell of a dust storm, dirt flinging every which way. I squinted, but the window was coated, and I couldn't really see anything besides the dust clouds.
I put my fingers to the window to try and wipe it off, and noticed my hand was covered in dirt. I looked down, saw my clothes were covered with the shit, probably from the filthy bunk. I patted myself off. The dust puffed in the dim moonlight. I didn't know if could handle another day of this. I had to take a shit, and I didn't wanna have to walk out in a dust storm to do my grunts in a ditch somewhere, but if I had to wait too--
WHAM!
Something whacked at the window, that sound of a grapefruit hitting glass I'd heard in my sleep, and I whipped around to look. There was a long, thin crack in the glass that I was pretty positive hadn't been there before. It had seemed actually louder than my dream.
"Christ!" Merle bellowed from the cell. I heard him push off his bunk and storm out of the cell. "Hell's the racket?"
"Jesus," I said, "I dunno. Fuckin' rock hit the window or somethin'."
He clomped over to where I was standing. When his face peeked into what little light there was, I nearly jumped. He'd taken off the shirt he'd tied around his head, and his eye looked like a bloody hollow.
"Jesus," I said, "Your eye okay?"
"Goddamn thing won't stop bleeding," he said, peering through the window with his remaining eye. He stared a second, then jumped backward, pulling his gun outta his belt. "Shit!"
"What?" I said, trying to see out the window, "What is it?"
"Somebody's out there," he said.
"Shit!" I said, all my visions of the cops coming right back to me. They'd caught up with us, and here they were, ready to bust down the door. I fumbled my gun out of my belt. "What'd you see?"
He shook his head. "Just somethin' movin'."
I looked out. Couldn't see shit, but I tried to stay in the shadows, lookin' for anything that could...
"Shit," I said, when I saw it. Nothing I could see too clear, just a shadow moving in the dust, but definitely the shape of a man. "What d'we do?"
Merle stared out the window a few seconds. "Hell with it," he said, "We stay in here, sooner'r later, we'll run outta ammo, then they'll just starve us out. Make us shit in the corner like animals, then eventually, they'll throw in the molotovs, burn us out. No fuckin' way. We make for the car, hope the storm hides us, if it don't..." he cocked his gun.
He made for the door. "Now, hold on a second," I said, none too eager to go out like the goddamn Wild Bunch, "Maybe we can negotiate..."
He spun and held his pistol right at my face. I almost dropped my load right in my britches right there. "No way, no fuckin' day," he said, "I ain't goin' back inside. You wanna take it up the ass, you do it alone."
He threw open the door, and ran into the storm, holding his arm over his eyes. Dirt blew in the doorway, right in my face.
"Hey, Merle!" I yelled after him, "C'mon now!"
But there was no answer, just the sound of blowing dust. Asshole'd left the door wide open, so I either had to get it closed and stand my ground, or get while the gettin' was good.
And much as I wanted to be a daddy to Crystal, I most certainly did not want to take it up the ass in the joint. So my good sense got beat down by my pussy soul, and I ran out into the cloud of swirling dirt.
I ran for the car, couldn't see Merle, or anything else for that matter. I had to cover my eyes with my arm, and the dust was whipping me, hard. For a second, I thought I was lost, that I'd run the wrong way, then I nearly tripped over the steps of the church, so I knew I was close. Fuck it, I thought, Merle's got the right idea. The hell with no gas, I'd ride the thing 'til the engine crapped out, then I'd run 'til my shoes tore off and my feet bled.
Then I got to the car, and I felt all those big ideas just snap in my head like a rubber band.
The car was filled with dirt. No way it could've gotten that full from a windstorm, even with the windows wide open, which they were most certainly fucking not. No, they were sealed up tight, and I could see the dirt inside. Not the little specks of sand that were blowing in the air, neither, this was solid brown. Fuckin' grave dirt.
But that wasn't all. The tires were sunk into the ground, and the bumper was halfway gone. At first I chalked it up to the wind blowing the dirt up over it, but while I watched, it slipped another inch or so. The damn thing was sinking.
And then I realized, we'd seen no other cars. No carcasses of dead animals. No live animals, for that matter. No nothing. Like the town was swallowing everything that came in it.
I felt something slice across the back of my hand. "Shit!" I hissed, and brought my hand up. There was a bloody cut across the back, like somebody had flicked a knife across it. I tried to figure out if a cop had done it, maybe fired at me, and just grazed me... but wouldn't I have heard the shot, even in this wind? I felt another zing across my cheek. I put my fingers on my cheek, they came back bloody.
I heard a muffled "Christ!" come from somewhere in the storm. I put my gun up, waiting to see if some pig with a badge was gonna stumble outta the storm. Joke's on them, I thought, if they thought this was gonna be an easy catch. Dirt whipped in my eyes, and I tried to keep my hand up to protect them, but another cut opened on my palm, and I realized, It's the storm, Jesus, it's whipping the dirt so hard, it's cutting me!
Merle stumbled out of the storm then, and I gasped. His body was covered in blood. At first, I couldn't see where he was bleeding from, then I realized, he was bleeding from everywhere. The dirt had sliced him up six ways from Sunday, making dozens of tiny cuts on his face and arms. His shirt was in tatters, even his jeans had bloody cuts across them. None of it looked life-threatening, but Jesus, was he in a state.
"What happened?" I yelled.
"Got turned around!" he yelled back. "The hell you waitin'..."
And then he saw the car. Now the bumper was under the earth, the car full-on half buried.
"Jesus shat," he said, "The hell's goin'--"
"Merle!" I yelled, putting my gun up. I'd seen something moving in the swirls of dust, I couldn't see what, but my mind locked on the image of a cop holding a shotgun. I saw another shape out of the corner of my eye, whipped my aim over toward it. Merle must've seen it too, because he had his gun up. We moved behind the car, putting it between us and them. Merle awkwardly held his left hand over his good eye as he took aim with the pistol. I cocked mine, trying to get my hand not to shake.
Then there it was, people coming out of the storm. I squinted, trying to shield my eyes and make them out, but all I saw was vague human shapes, moving slowly out of the swirling dust.
Merle aimed on one and fired. I thought he'd had it for sure, but the shape didn't flinch or buck, just kept moving forward. Didn't even react like he'd heard the shot. Fuck, I thought, surrounded by hard-asses. I tried to take aim, but the dirt was cutting me up now all over my bare arms, so I had to use my free hand to cover my face.
"Here they come!" Merle yelled.
The shapes stepped out of the storm... but they weren't men. I knew I couldn't be seeing what I was seeing, and for a wild second, I thought I was back in the bunk dreaming, or maybe lying in front of the "We Buy Gold!" shop, dying from where the owner had shot me.
They were... Jesus, they were covered in dirt.
No. No, they were fucking made of dirt.
And the one in front, leading them to us, he looked an awful damn lot like a certain fat man we knew. Even had the burned arm, where the meth lab had fried off his tats.
"The shit is that?!" Merle yelled.
My mind about broke right there. It's like, one second, you're in the real world, and maybe you're scared and maybe you're not sure what's goin' on, but there's rules and things you know, and maybe there's a God and maybe there ain't. Then a bunch'a dirt zombies or whatever walk out of a dust storm, and suddenly, you know there's a God, and he's pissed off at you.
I could see through the window of the church, and though I could barely make it out, I thought I could still see Slim's body, laid out on the pew. So whatever that thing leading the charge was, it wasn't him. Maybe his soul? Maybe these were the men who'd died here? The dirt drank their blood, and made like... like a dirt clone of 'em? The Jews had a word for it, I remembered from something I read in the joint, men made out of clay... golems.
Pieces of them were whipped off in the storm, but as they walked, they left footprints in the dirt, and that dirt swirled up their legs to take up the slack.
"Shit, piss and corruption," Merle said, "I already finished you, fat boy!" and fired at the one shaped like Slim. The bullet tore a chunk of dirt out, right dead center of his chest, where a heart should be. The dirt Slim didn't react, just kept moving slowly forward. For a second, there was an open hole you could see right through. Then the dirt began to swirl and pour back in, filling it up like an hourglass.
Me, I was frozen again. Couldn't do nothin' but stare and try not to shit myself. My heart was pounding, my chest was tight...
"Fuck this noise," Merle said, "Let's go!"
And that's when I had my heart attack.
I got no idea what my daddy felt when it happened to him, but for me, it happened all at once. One second, my arm's kinda sore, me thinking it's from holding it up to protect my face, then it feels a little prickly, then WHAM! pain traveled right up it to my chest, and it was like God hisself reached in, broke through my ribcage, grabbed my heart and just fuckin' squeezed. I tried gasping for air and nothing was comin', and I couldn't help it, I dropped to my knees.
"Fuck you doin'?" Merle screamed, but I barely heard it. I couldn't even stay on my knees, next thing I know, my face is in the dirt, and I'm suckin' it in, or maybe I wasn't suckin' at all, maybe it was flowin' in all on its own, it was real hard to tell in the moment.
"Piss on you, then," Merle said, and ran into the church.
My chest was heaving bigger than it'd ever felt, yet at the same time, I could barely catch a little breath. And even then, I was afraid to breathe, for fear of sucking in more dirt. I couldn't move my arm, and I thought about my daddy blasting his foot in half.
Then I thought of Crystal, and her brain squeezing her skull, and if that felt anything like this. How if I died here, then one day she might be on the ground like this, feeling it squeeze the life right outta her. I dunno if thinking this shot some extra juice into my system or what, but I was finally able to lift my head up, and suck in air like I'd been underwater.
The dirt men were near on top of me, and I pushed myself back up to my knees. I was shaking so bad I thought my legs were gonna slip right out from under me, but I somehow got to my feet, and started tripping to the church.
I stumbled up the little set of stairs, as Merle was trying to shut the double doors. He was having trouble, dirt had piled up, blocking the door, and he was having to kick it away. I pushed past him, got behind the door, and leaned on it with my back. Together, we shoved the doors shut, and Merle began moving pews in front of them to block them shut.
He'd gotten a few piled in front, when we heard them hammering at the door, huge thuds. Whatever they were, they were strong, but maybe no stronger than the men they'd taken. But men got tired, men bruised their knuckles and skinned their flesh. Did dirt get tired?
I looked at Slim's body on the pew, and my eyes naturally drifted to the altar. Even in the near-black, the stains were looking more'n more like blood. I began to turn it over... did we set this off? Did killing Slim, getting the blood dripping in the dirt, did that wake whatever it was that had been sleeping? Had we broken whatever magic was working to protect the place? Or maybe I was looking at this wrong... maybe the blood was what stopped it. Maybe Slim, big as he was, wasn't enough.
Or maybe it was just a matter of what the real estate-types said: location, location, location. Maybe if Merle'd bloodied him on the altar, it'd quench whatever thirst this place had.
Maybe it was bullshit. Maybe nothing we did could stop the hunger.
Fuck it, I thought, looking at Merle.
Merle was shoving pews against the doors and windows, trying to barricade them. He turned, looked at me over his shoulder. "You gonna help?"
"Sure," I said, and smashed the butt of my gun against his good eye, hard as I could. I swear I heard the crack of skull, and blood squirted out, but he didn't fall. I thought I'd seen him pissed before, but between him and the dirt monsters outside, I was beginnin' to think they were less scary.
He slammed his shoulder into my gut, cracking me into one of the pews. I tried to hit him with the gun, but I was just hitting him across his back, and that was nothing but hard muscle. He hit me in the stomach, and I dunno what the fuck he did with his hand, but he twisted some way, and brother, besides the heart attack, that was the worst pain I'd ever felt in life.
When I was in the joint, I'd woken up one night, sweating and retching, thinking I'd eaten a bad burrito, felt like I was gonna shit my stomach right out my asshole. Turned out my appendix was ready to burst, and they had to take me into emergency surgery to pull it out. But since county jail medicine ain't exactly caught up to Obamacare, I had to spend an hour on a wood bench in the doc's office, grabbing my stomach and praying for death.
That somehow paled in comparison to what Merle was doing to me.
He tackled me into another pew, doing the number with his hand in my stomach, and something felt like it exploded in my gut. I'm honestly surprised I stayed conscious, but I hit the floor, dropping the gun, everything swimming. My back hurt, my chest was still on fire, and my guts were twisted up.
His eyes were both a bloody mess, and I didn't know how much he could see, but he was still doing a fine job thrashing me. He started kicking me, and here it was finally, The Lecture. "You and your asshole friends, you need to learn a couple things 'bout loyalty!" he starts off, never mind he was the one ready to leave me in the dirt, my ticker popping like a balloon. He kept jawin', but it washed into white noise. Every time he kicked me, I thought to try and grab his foot the next time, but he kept kicking me in different spots, first in the gut, then the face, then in the ass a couple times, and when I tried to shield my aching asshole, he crammed me right in the junk.
Meanwhile, the thudding outside was getting louder, and I swear to God I was hearing wood cracking, and I'm thinking they're gonna get in here, and if they do, I'm never gonna see Crystal again, and as I'm thinking this, I see Merle pull his knife outta his pocket and flick it open so the metal gleams, but he goes for one last kick, and I dunno if it's fatherly love or pure dumb luck, but I grab Merle's foot as he brings it to my gut, and I don't got much strength, but I give it everything, twist as hard as I can, and I hear the pop as his ankle goes, and he slams to the ground.
He kicks me in the face with his other foot, then grabs his busted ankle, and when he does, I grab his hair, and slam his face into the wood floor, again and again. I hear cracking, but I got the fear in me now, and I keep going, up and down, smacking his face on the wood floor.
It's only when I start seeing blood on the wood that I hear a voice in me say, The altar, it's got to be on the altar!
I sweep his knife off the floor, and drag Merle by his hair to the altar. He ain't fightin' me, even so, I'm bone tired, hurting everywhere, and he ain't no lightweight, so it takes everything I got. I get him to the altar, and I hear the door split and the boarded windows crack open, and dirt starts to pour through the cracks, flowing like water onto the floor, spreading toward me.
I grit my teeth, and try to pull him up on the altar, but my arms got nothin' in 'em, and I can hear the dirt coming toward me, I hear it like water rushing toward me, even with my back turned, I can see the dirt filling up the church, filling it up like a grave. I yell and strain with everything I got, and I feel something in me snap, but Merle's up on the altar, and his eyes are flutterin' open, and he's raising his hands, lockin' 'em around my throat. I think how stupid this bright idea of mine is, I got no reason to think it'll work, but if nothing else, if I can't be a father to Crystal, then by God, I'll send this fucker to Hell with me, I can do that much, and I can see the dirt in the corners of my eyes, and I feel it filling in my shoes, up to my ankles, and I raise the knife, and I whisper her name as I bring it down.
When I woke the next morning, my body was like an open wound, so sore I could barely move. I tried to sit up, and something in my back howled, and my gut felt like it'd turned to rock. It took me a few minutes of sorta rolling onto my side before I could even think of using my arms to push to a sitting position. Even that took awhile, my arms shaking and rubbery.
I sat on the floor of the church, and tried to make sense of what I was seein'.
The church was empty.
The pews were scattered like I remembered 'em. But Slim and Merle were gone.
It took me awhile to push myself to my feet, and I dragged myself to the pew where Slim had been laid out. There were bloodstains where he'd been, but they looked old. Like they'd soaked into the wood years ago.
Same story with the altar, a faded rust-colored stain that I didn't remember yesterday, right where I could swear I brought the knife down on Merle. Had I? Was I remembering things wrong? I reached out to touch it...
... then thought better of it.
I looked around the church for my gun, Merle's knife, but couldn't find 'em.
I limped to the front door. It looked like it'd been cracked open by a battering ram. I pushed gently, and it swung open, easy as you please.
It took me awhile to get down the church steps, not just because of the pain, but because I was staring at the ground, waiting to see any shift in the dirt. There was nothing, not even a breeze kicking up dirt clouds. I put one foot on the dirt, and when nothing happened, I moved forward.
I went to where I'd left the car, naturally it was gone too. No giant pile of dirt or anything, just gone. Swallowed up, I thought, though in the light of day, that seemed stupid.
I limped slowly out of town.
On the edge of main drag, where the dirt carved into the road we'd come in on, I almost tripped over something buried in the dirt. I kneeled down, feeling every bone grinding and popping. Gently, oh, so gently, I brushed the dirt away.
It was a skull, I could see that just from the little of it that was poking out of the dirt. With a piece cracked out over the right eye.
The exact spot I'd cracked Merle with my gun butt.
I nodded, as if this were the most expected thing in the world. Then I stood, and hobbled onto the road. When I'd walked a good stretch, I turned back to look.
The skull was no longer poking out of the dirt.
I thought about Crystal, and kept walking.
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